Radio on ME/CFS Sat 5th Nov 9-10amGMT

[slysaint]

I'm at loss to understand what he's intending to do...

Perhaps he's doing it to wind Esther up

If Esther announced a similar donation we'd all smell a rat............maybe good PR for Phil Hammond(?) or maybe the letter made him question ECs approach?

 

[Esther12]

I think Hammond is misguided and misinformed about CFS in a way that is really not acceptable considering that her works at a CFS center... but one of the reasons it's so frustrating is that he's often on the right side of ethics problems in the NHS (the us of placebo is another area where he seems wrong, and I expect that plays a role in his problems with CFS). He might just genuinely support the cause?

I doubt he's politically committed to the biopsychosocial approach to CFS in the way Crawley & co are, although that he's been making money from it for a while now means it's unlikely to really come to terms with all the problems with it.

 

[AndyH]

To be fair to him he's donated £50+Gift Aid. Perhaps he's doing it to wind Esther up. She must hate the idea of money being donated by an employee of hers going towards one of those pointless biomedical research studies that is actually trying to replicate results from elsewhere.

Seems like a cover up to me. Crawley is in a corner and her only way out is to try and convince people they respect biological causation, which it's clear they don't.

 

[AndyPR]

From Private Eye, a magazine in the UK. Apparently M.D. is Phil Hammond.

If he truly believes all this then he must be horribly conflicted at work.

Text is also up on the MEA website where they credit it to him http://www.meassociation.org.uk/201...ne-balls-column-private-eye-25-november-2016/

 

[worldbackwards]

If he truly believes all this then he must be horribly conflicted at work

I can't see that it does him any good to say this if he doesn't mean it. It's no skin off his nose. And all in all, we don't know what goes on in his particular consulting room. He may just be doing what he can.

Anyway, I made a thread.

http://forums.phoenixrising.me/index.php?threads/private-eye-me-cluster-bomb.48034/

 

[PhoenixDown]

[18.22 PH] And you’re satisfied the trial was properly constructed and fair and valid ?

[18.24 EC] Absolutely, it was a GREAT, great trial. I mean, you know, it’s very difficult to do trials in this condition, but they did as good as anybody could have done.

Facepalm

[18.58 EC] Then the people that did the reanalysis did it again, using a different definition of recovery, that was much much harder to reach – and the trial just wasn’t big enough to show a difference, and they didn’t show a difference. Now, you know, you can pick and choose how you redefine recovery, and that’s all very important research, but the message from the PACE Trial is not contested; the message is, if you want to get better, you’re much more likely to get better if you get specialist treatment.

So not CBT and GET then?

And we have to stop doing these really small studies, because I think they’re just confusing. They don’t end up being what’s called ‘replicated’, so they’re not reproduced a second time, and I don’t think they’re adding, at the moment, to the world literature.

May be they would be bigger if less money was wasted on psychology studies.

[28.39 EC] I have been overwhelmed with children, teenagers and parents from all over the UK, asking to be able to come into this trial. It’s something – I also want to say – there are people who are trying to stop our research, but they are only a tiny minority, compared to the overwhelming number of teenagers and parents who are absolutely desperate to take part in research, and desperate for treatment and help.

You mean to say M.E patients are in the minority in the big pool of chronic fatigue

[29.52 EC] So the evidence, the best evidence that you can ever get is what’s called the Systematic Review, it’s when you look at all of the papers, and all of the research that’s ever been done, and you combine the data. And the largest systematic review, of over 1,500 people was absolutely clear, there was no evidence of harm.

You mean like the cochrane review which was made by the same people who did the PACE trial. Also were the severely affected equally represented in these trials?

...She's really not any good at putting across a coherent argument. How do these people even make it through medical school, much less convince the government to keep giving them grants?

Because Esther Crawley keeps telling the government and doctors what they want to hear.

 

[Barry53]

Because Esther Crawley keeps telling the government and doctors what they want to hear.

Something she is really good at.